Saturday, April 11, 2015

(Luke 23:44-49) 44 It was now
about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the
afternoon, 45 for the sun stopped shining. And the
curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Jesus
called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my
spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.

47 The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said,
“Surely this was a righteous man.” 48 When all the
people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat
their breasts and went away. 49 But all those
who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a
distance, watching these things.

All week,
we have been looking at Jesus’ words from the cross. We are reminded that while
God had a plan all along, a plan of resurrection and glorification, this
doesn’t mean Jesus had an easy time. Jesus suffered terribly. And at noon, even
nature itself responded as Jesus died. Darkness came across the land as the sun
stopped shining.

Even the
Temple was affected, as the curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the rest
of the Temple, was torn in two. And Jesus
called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my
spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last. (Luke 23:46)

When I was
planning out the program for the Easter Revival and chose the seven words of
Jesus, I realized that I only had seven opportunities to preach. And I like to
use a different text on Easter. The empty tomb. He is Risen! So I thought about
maybe skipping one of the words of Jesus from the cross, but I couldn’t choose
one to drop. It didn’t seem right to only preach on six of Jesus’ seven words.
And I couldn’t combine two, because there simply isn’t enough time. So today,
on Easter Sunday, we get Jesus’ last word from the cross.

There is something unique about this word. While Friday’s word: “It is finished!” was a word of victory,
this word is pronounced victoriously. When someone is on the cross, their death
is generally a torturously slow death of asphyxiation. They are unable to
breathe. But Jesus summons enough strength to speak out in a loud voice. This isn’t
a coincidence. Once again, Jesus prays from the Psalms. This time his prayer is
from Psalm 31:5 Into your hands I commit
my spirit; deliver me, Lord, my faithful God.

Jesus prays
a prayer of trust and a prayer for rescue.

Sometimes
we can get confused about terminology. In the US, when we talk about “spirit”
we often think of a dualism: the body and the soul, two parts of one person.
But the spirit, in Hebrew and Greek thought, comprised the person’s whole
being. So the prayer is, as Eugene Peterson paraphrase in The Message: “I’ve put my life in your hands.”

Jesus
trusts God with everything.

And things
go dark. Darkness reigns over the earth for three hours. Satan laughs in
victorious glee. Jesus is delivered to death, to the grave.

But that’s
not the end of the story. You see, on the third day, Sunday, he rose again!
Luke 24:1-8 tells the story: On the first
day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had
prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the
stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they
entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While
they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like
lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright
the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them,
“Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He
is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with
you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be
delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be
raised again.’ ” 8 Then they remembered his
words.

When Jesus
prayed in faith, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,” he was acting in
faith. Only God could save him. And we see that God did save him. God was
faithful. It can be easy to only look at the cross from this side of history.
We already knew how the story would unfold. We knew that Jesus would rise
again. But we have the benefit of hindsight. Jesus was living in that moment,
with faith that God would rescue him, but it hasn’t happened yet. It reminds me
of the faith of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, facing the fiery furnace.

(Daniel
3:17-18) If we are thrown into the
blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he
will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. 18 But
even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve
your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

This is
Jesus’ level of trust. He is facing death, he is facing abandonment, even by
his Father. He is dehydrated and spiritually thirsty. He has taken the world’s
sin upon his shoulders. Yet he doesn’t give up his faith. Instead, he gives
himself fully to faith, saying, “Even though things are at their worst, I still
trust God with everything.”

What I love
about Jesus’ last words from the cross is that even as Jesus spoke them, so can
we. Thankfully, most of us will never know what Jesus experienced, and we will
never go through the depth of what he experienced. But because of Jesus, even
when we are at our worst, in our deepest struggle, because his spirit lives and
moves within us, we can pray this same prayer. When we come up against darkness
that doesn’t quit, death that steals our life, we can choose to trust in God.
To say, “Father I trust you with my life.”

There are
times when our faith is misplaced. Some trust in money: the almighty kwacha or
the almighty dollar. It seems like money makes things better. That is sometimes
true, as long as your money serves you instead of the other way around. But the
problem with money is it’s never enough. It never satisfies. Sometimes we trust
in people, and they always let us down.

But our
trust and faith in God is not misplaced. Jesus demonstrated whole-hearted faith
and obedience on the cross, and his faith and obedience were rewarded. Indeed,
today we celebrate because the cross is empty, and so is the tomb! Jesus is
alive! God raised Jesus from the dead. We have the assurance that God is
faithful.

In closing, I need to ask you: Have
you put your life and, indeed, your life beyond this life, into God’s hands? Have
you accepted that you cannot save yourself, that you are in need of a Savior? If
not, it is time to pray the same prayer that Jesus prayed on the cross: Father,
into your hands I commit my spirit.

If you have given your life to God
through Jesus Christ, are you making a difference in the world? Are you
allowing God to use you to be a blessing to someone else?

28 Later, knowing that
everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be
fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” 29 A
jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the
sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. 30 When
he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that,
he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

I love long-distance running. I have
loved running since I was a little boy. But there is something about running a
long race. My first long race was a 40 km trail race. It was over some very
difficult terrain, and the last two or three km were all uphill. When I saw the
finish line, I got tears in my eyes. I was finished, not just done with the
race, but I was finished. I had nothing else left. You’ve probably seen
football matches where, at the final whistle, the players collapse on the
field. They’ve given their all. They are finished.

Jesus has been through an ordeal much
more grueling than a 40 km race or a 90 minute football match. He has been
tortured, whipped, and beaten. His followers have abandoned him, and, in
Peter’s case, denied that they even know him. Jesus was made to carry his own
cross, after which he was nailed to it and hung to die a terrible death. And at
this point, he finally utters those words: “It
is finished.”

When Jesus said those words, it
certainly would fit that Jesus felt relief that the end was in sight. His
suffering was over. It is finally done. But the Greek word that we translate
“it is finished” is tetelestai, and
it means more than just “it is finally done.”

I love the way Eugene Peterson
expresses this word from Jesus in his paraphrase The Message. “It’s done . . . complete.”

This is more than “it is finally
over.” This is a full report of “mission accomplished.” God sent Jesus here to
earth for a purpose, and Jesus had accomplished that purpose. He initiated and
inaugurated the Kingdom of God. He revealed God’s character in a new,
incarnational way. When God spoke to Moses, he told him His Name:“The Lord, the Lord, the
compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and
faithfulness,maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving
wickedness, rebellion and sin. (Exodus 34:6-7)

Jesus came and lived out God’s Name.
He showed compassion and grace. Slow to anger? He allowed a corrupt trial and
never even spoke out in his own defense, even though he was innocent of all
charges. His love and faithfulness abounded, and his love extended, not to
thousands, but to millions, even billions as his mission, that which he was
accomplishing on the cross, forgave wickedness, rebellion and sin. Jesus opened
heaven’s doors wide open for anyone, through faith in him, to enter in. Jesus
inaugurated the Kingdom of God, for all of us to live, to live life to the full,
fully in the reign of God.

Jesus completed the work for which
God had sent him to earth. Jesus completed the work of salvation. This means that
we don’t need to add to it. It’s not about how hard we work; our work does not
accomplish our salvation. Yes, the Apostle Paul tells us to work out our
salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12), but he does not say “work
for” – he says “work out.” There is a difference. The
difference is that if we have to work for it, then it should stand to reason
that it would be possible for us, if we work hard enough, to achieve salvation
on our own.

Is that possible?

The standard, God’s standard, is
perfection. If you have messed up, even once, and after that, you’ve been
perfect, then it’s not perfection. Perfection is 100% perfection. And that is
God’s standard. So if you want to try to do it on your own, that’s what you
have to aim for. And if you’ve already messed up, forget about it. But Jesus’
act on the cross has paid our debt. Not only does he provide forgiveness for
our sins, but he actually erases our sins, makes us as if we had never
committed sin in the first place. That’s why it’s important to know that in
Christ, we are new creations. The old is gone. The new has come. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (1 Corinthians
5:17)

Jesus did what you or I could never
do. He took our sin upon himself and gave us new life in return. Jesus finished
his mission, and we benefit from what he did. Because of what he finished, we
don’t have to be “finished” – done, all out of energy. We have new hope every
day. We also know that because he completed his work, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to
completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:6)

Until the day of Christ Jesus, we can
live in the confidence of Jesus’ victorious words of completion: “It is
finished.”

Thursday, April 2, 2015

Today as we
reflect on Jesus’ last words from the cross, I want to start elsewhere. I want
to start earlier in Jesus’ ministry, in John 4. Jesus was on his way from Judea
to Galilee, and on the way, he went through Samaria. Around noon, he stopped by
Jacob’s well to rest. There he met a Samaritan woman who had come to draw
water. He asked her for a drink. She responded, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a
drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of
God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he
would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to
draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you
greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself,
as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water
will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never
thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water
welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:9-14)

It is very
interesting to me that whenever the John the Evangelist talks about thirst, he
brings it back to the spiritual metaphor. Thirst for John isn’t just a thirsty
feeling. It isn’t just the need for water. It comes back to our need for Living
Water, that which only Jesus can provide.

So we find
Jesus, on the cross, experiencing extreme thirst. He has lost blood and sweat
and is badly dehydrated. On its most basic level, Jesus’ statement, “I am thirsty” was, on the most
obvious level, a request for something to drink. In response the soldiers gave
Jesus “sour wine” (v. 29), a cheap beverage common among lower class people in
the time of Jesus.

But Jesus didn’t just ask for a drink
simply because he was physically thirsty, but also in order to fulfill the
Scripture. Though John doesn’t specifically reference the scripture, he was
thinking of Psalm 69, which includes this passage:

Their insults have broken my heart,
and I am in despair.
If only one person would show some pity;
if only one would turn and comfort me.
But instead, they give me poison for food;
they offer me sour wine for my thirst.(vv. 20-21)

Jesus’ thirst also fulfilled scripture.
But it was also a spiritual thirst; as Jesus suffered, he embodied the pain of
the people of Israel, that which had been captured in the Psalms. Jesus was
suffering for the sin of Israel, even as he was taking upon himself the sin of
the world. His thirst was spiritual as well as physical.

In the book of Ezekiel, chapter 47,
we see a prophecy about water coming from the Temple. The river was so pure
that even where it empties into the sea, it makes the salt water fresh.Swarms of living creatures will live
wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, becausethis
water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows
everything will live. (v. 9)

Jesus lived out this prophecy – do
you remember what happened when he touched a leper or an unclean woman? The Law
said that anything or anyone who touched something or someone unclean became
unclean themselves. So if you knew someone with leprosy, you couldn’t touch
them, even if they were your child, without becoming unclean yourself. But
Jesus went out and touched them and healed them, and instead of becoming
unclean, he made them clean. Because he is that stream of Living Water, making
everything he touches clean.

In Revelation 7, John sees a vision
of a great multitude in white robes, so numerous that no one can count them.
(Revelation 7:13-17)

Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and
where did they come from?”

I answered, “Sir, you
know.”

And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation;
they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore,

“they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in
his temple;
and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.

Listen to this: ‘Never again will they hunger; never
again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat down on them,’ nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of
the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living
water.’ ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’”

While Jesus suffered greatly, he
knows that others will suffer as well. Jesus died suffering. And right now, in
our world, Christians are dying, suffering. Islamic State is killing
Christians, raping Christian women and even beheading Christian children and
celebrating as they do so. Churches are being bombed and Christians killed in
Pakistan. In North Korea, in Saudi Arabia, it is illegal to be a Christian.
Christians have been chased from Ethiopia, where one of the oldest Christian
groups has worshiped for two thousand years. In his thirst, Jesus fulfilled
prophecy, but also, his thirst leads to another prophecy, the prophecy from Isaiah
49 that the elder speaks of in Revelation 7.

Jesus is the spring of Living Water,
but on the cross, that water was fouled by our sin. But in his resurrection,
Jesus makes that Living Water available for all who would come to the fountain.
The problem is that we are thirsty for all kinds of other things. We thirst for
money and power. We thirst for material things, things that will not last. But
until our thirst is for Jesus, for his Living Water, we will never be
satisfied.

Does your soul yearn for the Living
Water that only Jesus can supply? If you are satisfied, like the Apostle Paul,
you have learned to be content in all circumstances, it is because you do have
the one thing that you need for such satisfaction. You have Jesus Christ’s
Living Water flowing out of you.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

One thing
I’ve heard frequently, especially since I have arrived in Zambia, is what is
sometimes called the Prosperity Gospel or “Health and Wealth Gospel” or “Name
it and Claim it.” This is the teaching that if you ask for something in faith,
God will necessarily give it. In this teaching, suffering is never in God’s
will, so if one suffers, it stands to reason that they are out of or apart from
God’s will. Perhaps they have sinned and they suffer the consequence of sin.
Perhaps they do not have enough faith, and so they suffer.

There are several problems with this teaching. The big reason is that it does
not fit within the context of scripture. Though there are some verses that seem
at first blush to support this teaching, in context they do not. When the
Apostle Paul begs God three times to remove the thorn from his flesh, God does
not remove it in order that through Paul’s weakness, God’s strength will be
manifested.

And in this
scripture, we see Jesus, who never sinned, whose obedience to God went all the
way to death on a cross. We see him suffer abandonment. When Jesus cries out,
he echoes the beginning of Psalm 22:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far away when I groan for help?
Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer.
Every night you hear my voice, but I find no relief. (vv. 1-2)

Jesus wasn’t just reciting scripture;
he was praying scripture. This is an important distinction. When you have
allowed scripture to penetrate your heart, you will find that the emotions you
experience have been expressed before. There is nothing wrong with expressing
your true feelings to God. God already knows what you are going through, so you
don’t need to pretend that you aren’t.

But even though this was the worst
possible suffering, Jesus wasn’t just expressing that he was at the depth of
despair. He was expressing true abandonment by God. How can this be, as God has
promised to never leave us or forsake us? We read in Psalm 23 that Even though I walk through the Valley of the
Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me…

Worse even than the pain of torture
on the cross was the pain of being abandoned by God. Why did God abandon Jesus?
At the moment of his crucifixion, Jesus took upon himself all the sin of humanity.
All the past sin, the present sin, and the future sin. Including your sin and
mine. 1 Peter 2:24 tells us that He
himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and
live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. But he didn’t
simply take our sins away. As we read in 2 Corinthians 5:21, God made him who had no sin to be sin for
us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. He became sin
for us. And our God is a Holy God, and he cannot allow sin in his presence, so
when Jesus became sin for us, he was cast from God’s presence.

Know that Jesus’ faith was never in
question. He still calls him “My God,
My God” – indicating their continuing
relationship. He doesn’t doubt. But he still feels the weight of that
abandonment. He knew that God was everything he needed. He didn’t need God plus
something else. God’s presence was like the air he breathed – necessary for
life itself. And Jesus experienced the anguish of being without him.

So today I want to finish with two
questions. First of all, do you feel abandoned? You are not alone. If you are
in Christ, you are never alone. Jesus experienced true abandonment so that you
don’t have to. He has been where you are. And if you are in Christ, you have
been given the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, who is always with you, never to
forsake you. Because of what Jesus did for you, you are never alone.

The second question is have you given
your life fully to Jesus? Is abandonment by God the worst thing you can
possibly imagine? If not, then maybe you need to give him your whole heart. You
need to depend on God like you need air to breathe.

When I survey the wondrous cross,
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God;
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to his blood.

See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down;
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.